Wekiva River Plan Clears Hurdle

Bigger Commercial Area Okay In Basin

February 14, 1989|By Peter Mitchell of The Sentinel Staff

TAVARES — The most recent plan to guide future development in the Wekiva River basin gained momentum Monday as the Lake County planning and zoning board recommended the proposed 32-page ordinance almost entirely intact.

In its advisory role, the board suggested five changes to the proposed plan - three of which had been proposed by area landowners. The county commission is to consider the plan Feb. 24.

On Monday, the zoning board suggested enlarging the basin's potential commercial area, loosening restrictions over agriculturally zoned land, and requiring more use of the county's flood plain maps. But the group left untouched the plan's more far-reaching sections.

The Wekiva River plan is an amendment to Lake County's comprehensive land- use plan. In its current form, it does little to change the area's zoning restrictions. But it says that any development proposal of more than one house per five acres must comply with planned-unit-development requirements.

That is a zoning in which the county sets the limitations of commercial, residential and other uses of property on a case-by-case basis.

The amendment is required by the Wekiva River Protection Act passed by the state Legislature last year. The act requires Lake County to prepare an amendment by April 1 that would protect 122 square miles along the spring-fed river - what amounts to 13 percent of the county.

As the plan's deadline approaches, a battle has raged between environmental groups, which believe the area's zoning is too lenient, and area landowners anxious to preserve their development rights.

At Monday's hearing, almost every comment came from landowners such as Catherine Hanson, who described herself as a dairy farmer with a real estate license.

''By passing this amendment, you will turn nearly everyone in the basin from landowners, with a vested interest in the quality of the community, to tenants,'' Hanson told the board. ''They will be forced to pay the taxes and forced to pay the mortgage, but they won't be permitted to enjoy the economic benefits of their investment.''

Landowners had several suggestions Monday. Fred Richards, the president of the Wekiva Basin Land Owners Association, suggested, among other things, allowing landowners to sell their right to develop property. Leesburg attorney Steve Richey, who represents the group, proposed conservation measures as well as new county taxes to support buying environmentally sensitive land in the area.

A key goal of the landowner group is to get what members believe is a fair price for land or permission to more easily gain the denser zoning classifications so they can develop their tracts.

They did not get that from the planning and zoning board. But the landowners did not leave empty-handed. Among the zoning board's recommendations was the suggestion to increase the area available for commercial development.

The board amended a section that limited commercial areas to planned unit developments and five intersections in the basin. The group voted 5-3 to increase the commercial area around each intersection from two to four acres.

Another recommendation from the zoning board suggested removing language that requires farmers and timber producers to prove it is ''economically feasible'' to farm or raise trees on their land. Several area farmers had requested the changes.